The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) court on Thursday dismissed the bail petition of T. Pattabhirama Rao, the judge who granted bail to former Karnataka Minister Gali Janardhan Reddy. This was the second time bail was denied to him since his arrest in June.
The grounds on which the plea was rejected were not known immediately as the detailed order was not ready at the end of the court hours.
Pattabhi’s lawyer M. Krishna Prasad had submitted to court during arguments on Tuesday that his client was keeping poor health and that he had not received any gratification for bailing out Reddy. The ACB which investigated the case had also not collected any incriminating evidence from Rao.
The suspended judge was arrested solely because the keys of the bank lockers belonging to a co-accused T.V. Chalapathi Rao were found in the possession of former’s son Ravichandra, Mr. Prasad said. The public prosecutor of ACB opposed bail for Rao stating that the investigation in the case was not yet over.
The argument of ACB was contested by the defence which filed a memo in court on Thursday highlighting that the investigating agency had already filed the charge sheet on Monday. The stand of the ACB amounted to misguiding the court as the charge sheet represented the closure of investigation.
Meanwhile, Ravichandra and Chalapathi Rao on Thursday requested the court to set them free as they had completed the mandatory 60 days of detention since their arrest. They pointed out that their continued detention would be illegal if the court did not take immediate steps on the charge sheet. The matter would be heard on Friday.
ACB, CBI searches
The ACB and CBI today carried out joint search of bank lockers of Janardhan Reddy and his followers in Parvathinagar branch of Axis Bank at Bellary. They also questioned the gunmen of MLAs Somashekhar Reddy and T.H. Suresh Babu, both of whom were in jail here, at the office of the Bellary Superintendent of Police, according to reports here.
